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Ambitious Vision for Downtown Edgartown

The old Navigator restaurant in Edgartown - she ain't
what she used to be.

And for all the survivors of overpriced watered-down cocktails and
stuffed quahaugs that landed in the stomach like a lead sinker on a
codfish rig - that may not be such a bad thing.

On Wednesday morning, building owners Gerret C. Conover and Thomas
E. LeClair settled back in their chairs in the large, tastefully spare
room which is their sales office, overlooking a foggy Edgartown harbor
already alive with the sailboats and private yachts that signal the
start of summer in this town of stately old whaling captain homes and
rose covered fences.

The two men are at the forefront of plans to rebuild the Navigator
into a mixed use building that will eventually include a public
restaurant and retail shops on the ground floor and a private club on
the second floor. The private club will be linked with a second private
recreation facility at Katama named the Field Club.

Their development vision is rendered in handsome color drawings,
schematics and scale models all around the room.

Dressed in matching white sneakers and khaki shorts, they appear
tanned and relaxed - hardly the demeanor you'd expect
considering the year's work they have ahead of them.

The regulatory hurdles have all been cleared and construction is set
to begin on the Navigator and Field Club projects in early September.
Plans call for completing the Navigator and most of the Field Club
before next summer. The total cost for both projects, including land
acquisition, is estimated at about $30 million.

A table nearby is stacked with glossy brochures describing club
membership. So far, they have sold about 100 memberships. That's
still a long way from a stated goal of 400 memberships, but they say
they are pleased, especially considering the memberships were all sold
before the project had cleared a long and tangled regulatory process on
numerous fronts.

They are still a couple of months away from pulling building
permits; a closing is set for the purchase of the land at Katama in
about three weeks. A plan to provide valet parking has been problematic
- but they're working on it - and they have been
forced to close the Navigator for the summer season as things are
running about six months behind schedule.

But despite any setbacks and months of public meetings where they
feel they have not always received a fair shake in the press, Mr.
Conover and Mr. LeClair remain enthusiastic about their club development
are keen to share their vision, not only for the club but also for a
broader revival of Edgartown.

"This is the perfect time [to talk] now that we're fully
permitted and we're starting construction," Mr. Conover
said. "Obviously we'd hoped to be where we are now six
months ago but because of the way the permitting time-frame played out,
one thing had to be knocked off before you could go to the next,"
he added.

"We hate the thought that the Navigator's not open this
summer," said Mr. LeClair.

"We were its biggest patrons," added Mr. Conover.

There is much to be done. At the Navigator between now and the end
of the season the work will all be internal - kitchen equipment
and nonstructural fixtures will be removed - so the major
structural work can begin in mid-September.

It will be a heavy renovation. Most of the second floor will come
down and there will be all new rooflines. The end result will be a
building set further back from the street and the water.

"Simply by pulling this building back a little bit, widening
the sidewalk, putting in street lanterns and trees, it's going to
connect Main street to the harbor," said Mr. LeClair.
"It's going to continue the pedestrian flow not only down
the street but to a nice harbor walk around this building."

The Field Club, which will be sited in the center of a residential
project at Katama and now in the early stages of development by another
group of businessmen, will be built at the same time, but may not be
fully finished by next summer.

"It is our plan to concentrate on the things we can have open
next summer. All the tennis, paddle tennis, lawn games, the health club,
we hope to have open by the summer of '08. We hope to have
whatever's left - wherever we fall short - finished
the following year," Mr. Conover said, adding:

"We don't want to over-promise but we'll hit it
hard and all simultaneously. It's important to us to is to
structure this thing so we do it right out of the gates the first time.
It's not a phased project."

And as if the Navigator and the Field Club were not enough, they
acknowledge that they have other projects on their mind in downtown
Edgartown.

An option to buy the Shiretown Inn property recently expired but may
become live again, depending on what happens during a review that
current property owners must go through before the Martha's
Vineyard Commission.

Some kind of an agreement with the Hall family to take over the
Yellow House at the corner of Main and Summer streets, which has sat
unused and in a state of crumbling disrepair for four years - is
in the final stages, they said.

They also own the former Chadwick Inn on Winter street.

"It's a nice property; it's in B1 [the town
business district]. So we acquired it, having flexibility. We
don't know exactly what we're doing there yet, but the old
house is really a neat house," Mr. Conover said.

The two men worry about their town. The shoulder seasons are getting
shorter and town businesses struggle to store up enough financial fat in
the short summer to last them through the long winter.

"It's very difficult to make the numbers work in such a
short season," said Mr. Conover, adding:

"This building [the Navigator] is going to be open for
shoulder season events. It will do great things for our town, our
community. Weddings, town events and charity events that everyone will
enjoy. This building is the first real good example of taking an older
building which really needed a major financial infusion."

But not the last.

"The 30 founding members who put up almost all the money for
this project, some of them are helping us with other projects, like the
Yellow House," Mr. LeClair said.

"We all know there was more vibrancy in this town 20 years ago
than there is today. We're hoping to reverse that," Mr.
Conover said, concluding:

"We have no overall master plan as such. But the commercial
base of this town is crucial."